She may have been forced to give up her throne more than a century ago, but Queen Lili‘uokalani retains a firm hold on the hearts of many Native Hawaiians — and has captured the imaginations of a growing number of authors and artists. And given the role that Northern California played in the islands' history, it's only appropriate that some of the new explorations of her legacy are originating here.

On Saturday, Oakland kumu hula Mark Keali‘i Ho‘omalu and performers from his Academy of Hawaiian Arts will present the U.S. premiere of "Kingdom Denied—Between the Lines," a theatrical presentation examining the monarchy's overthrow through the music of the queen, her royal siblings and their supporters. (For more about the show at Chabot College, see the preview in Hawaii Insider.) Among those eagerly anticipating the production: Julia Flynn Siler, Marin resident and author of "Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure" (Atlantic Monthly), which hit regional bestseller lists shortly after its release in January. She'll be one of the keynote speakers of the Distinctive Women In Hawaiian History conference in Honolulu Sept. 15, and will address audiences across school groups and other audiences there before returning to San Francisco for the opening Litquake panel on Oct. 5.

A Native Californian who first visited Hawaii on family vacations, Siler said she had only a "slim grasp" on the history of islands growing up. "Never in my history classes did we study how Hawaii became part of the United States," she noted in an interview yesterday, adding that she was "stunned" after reading the first chapter of former New York Times reporter Stephen Kinser's 2007 "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change," which highlighted the role of U.S. mercantile interests in the 1893 takeover and 1898 annexation. "I did not know that it had happened," she said. "Even though he just devoted one chapter to it, he did it very skillfully."

Siler wrote a book proposal for "Lost Kingdom" in 2007-8, intrigued by Kinser's work and the election of a president who came from Hawaii ("The zeitgeist was just there," she observed.) Already a bestselling author for 2007's "The House of Mondavi," detailing the Napa Valley winemaking family's disarray, and a contributing writer for the Wall Street Journal, Siler said she initially she saw the story as "a terrific story of a land grab," but that changed during her research.

"There are so many unanswered questions, and I had a particular way of approaching it from my long experience as a business reporter, looking at the money and the economic transformation of the islands," she explained. "The further I got into it, I realized that it's a painful tragedy, and much deeper than a business story."

Revealing letters

It helped that Siler had access to some 1,800 pages of newly transcribed letters and other documents of Queen Lili‘uokalani and the royal family, given to her by renowned bibliographer David Forbes before he presented them to the Hawaii State Archives.

"He spent four years gathering correspondence of all the royals and painstakingly transcribing it … The amount of labor it involved, I can't even begin to tell you," Siler noted. "The result of this was it offered me, a writer who happened to get lucky, the opportunity to understand Lili‘u" — one of the queen's birth names — "and her relationship with the rest of the family. … That's one of the reasons I decided to tell the story of Lili‘u: I had such a wealth of material and so much insight from it."

Through reading diary entries and letters, for example, Siler learned how many tragedies in the queen's life shaped her response to the businessmen and descendants of American missionaries who challenged her rule, especially when it came to avoiding loss of life.

"The death of her sister [Princess Miriam Likelike] was particularly heartbreaking. I felt incredible admiration for her ability to forgive her enemies and her very difficult decision not to fight back when they came marching through," Siler said. "And once you start looking at the waves of disease that swept through Native Hawaiians, and the amount of deaths and funerals that she went to, you understand that she didn't want to lose a single Hawaiian."

These transcriptions, Siler noted, would not have been available to authors Sarah Vowell, whose 2011 nonfiction bestseller "Unfamiliar Fishes" wryly covers much of the same turbulent period, or novelist James D. Houston, who wrote about the 19th century connections of California and Hawaii, including the death of Kalākaua in San Francisco in 1891, in 2007's "Bird of Another Heaven." The Santa Cruz writer was also working on a novel about Queen Lili‘uokalani, according to Siler, when he died in 2009. But even with all the documents, there are still unanswered questions.

"As she took the throne, as her enemies started circling around her and tightening, she became aware that her diaries and letters may have been read, and she became cautious about what she wrote on paper," Siler said. "How fascinating it would have been to sit and talk with her about her feelings."

Exploring royal legacy

For those who want to learn more about Queen Lili‘uokalani, Siler recommends touring ‘Iolani Palace, where she ruled and was later imprisoned, and Washington Place, where she lived before and after her reign, until her death in 1917.

Built by the family of the queen's husband, John Owen Dominis, Washington Place is now the official residence of the governor of Hawaii, and is available for weekly tours by reservation. "Her bedroom, where she died, was very poignant," said Siler, who noted that the low-income children benefiting from the Queen Lili‘uokalani Trust recently had their annual gathering there. The palace, meanwhile, is "a very unsettled place — it's sad, unfinished. It's surprising," she commented. "I can't tell you how many times I've been there I come away with a deeper feeling toward it."

‘Iolani is also home to a patchwork quilt the queen and her companions made during her 10-month house arrest there. "Every time I see that quilt, I get chicken skin," Siler said. "It's a physical manifestation of that time, her imprisonment and her legacy. It's very, very moving."

The palace also hosts an annual ‘Onipa‘a celebration around the queen's birthday (Sept. 2), named for her motto, meaning "steadfast" or "determined" in Hawaiian. It includes living history walking tours, which continue through Sept. 9 this year, that retrace "four pivotal days leading up to and including the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy" (click here to register.)

Parts of the 7.5-acre Lili‘uokalani Botanical Garden in Honolulu once belonged to the queen, who enjoyed picnicking there, next to Nu‘uanu Stream and waterfalls, and bequeathed it to the city. The park now showcases native Hawaiian plants and is open daily (except Dec. 25 and Jan. 1.)

In addition to Siler's Litquake presentation, she'll speak locally about "Lost Kingdom" Oct. 25 at the San Domenico School Author Luncheon in San Anselmo and Nov. 8 at the Friends of the Fairfax Library Book Club. Siler will also moderate "East Meets West: Riveting History" with prize-winning authors Adam Hochschild and T. J. Stiles Nov. 11 at UC Berkeley. See her Web site for details.

Jeanne Cooper is the former Chronicle Travel Editor and author of SFGate's Hawaii Insider, a blog about Hawaii travel and island culture.